Bike Intelligencer » paul sherwenhttp://bikeintelligencer.com
All bike, all the timeTue, 24 Feb 2015 18:30:12 +0000en-UShourly1Tour de France 2010 Prologue: Notes from Day Onehttp://bikeintelligencer.com/2010/07/tour-de-france-2010-prologue-notes-from-day-one/
http://bikeintelligencer.com/2010/07/tour-de-france-2010-prologue-notes-from-day-one/#commentsSat, 03 Jul 2010 15:56:47 +0000http://bikeintelligencer.com/?p=3674A fairly routine prologue to the Tour de France had us paying more attention to the commentators than the racing.

We couldn’t help noticing:

Fabian Cancellara, “Spartacus,” actually won a race without the aid of a 100-watt battery-powered motor concealed in his bottom bracket! Good on ya, Spart!

Veteran cycling commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, doing play-by-play for the Versus Channel, still cannot pronounce Wenatchee sprinter Tyler Farrar’s last name correctly (it’s FAIR-er, not FurRARR). At least, not all of the time. Understandable — even er get it wrong, usually when saying it while reading it, which for some reason makes it harder. We’ve noticed the same pattern with Phil and Paul. Perhaps Tyler should just get his name legally changed, or at least the pronunciation of it. He could change the spelling to Fairer, for example. The daughter of a friend of ours got so tired of people calling her ANNE-ah instead of her preferred Ah-nah that she changed the spelling to Ahna. Problem solved!

Liggett, who should know better, blamed the timing of the Wall Street Journal’s explosive doping series on Lance Armstrong and his inner circle — the first day of the Tour — on … Floyd Landis! While Landis cooperated with the reporters, anyone with even passing acquaintance of the news business knows that subjects don’t get to choose when a story runs. That’s the newspaper’s sole responsibility. Liggett accused Landis of timing the story to hurt Lance at the worst moment possible, the first day of his final Tour. We think the Journal timed the story to sell the most possible newspapers.

The beauty and scale of Rotterdam, the second largest port in the world, was breathtaking, and lyrically captured by the laudable Versus coverage. Why can’t America have cities like that?!

Versus listed a screen jammed with potential Tour de France winners — Lance, Contador, the Schlecks, Cadel Evans, Barry Wiggins, on and on. But one name was glaringly absent. Ivan Basso was omitted, we hope simply by oversight. Basso rode a glorious Giro d’Italia to victory and deserves at least as much consideration as anyone for the Yellow Jersey.

Aside from these nits, we had an enjoyable time watching the prologue, are forever indebted to Versus for live coverage, and cannot wait for the Tour to get serious in the mountains.